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| Washington Report: Arab Jaffa Seized Before Israel's Creation in 1948 by Donald Neff | eMail to a friend
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Posted on November 2, 2000
The Below article was taken from the Washington Report at the following URL:-
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0494/9404075.htm
Arab Jaffa Seized Before Israel's Creation in 1948
By Donald Neff
April/May
1994, Page 75
It was 46 years ago, on May 13, 1948 -the day before Israel's creation-that
the all-Arab seaside city of Jaffa surrendered to Jewish forces. It was the
largest Arab city in Palestine and, under the U.N. Partition Plan, was to have
been part of a Palestinian state. But Menachem Begin's terrorist Irgun group
began bombarding civilian sectors of the city on April 25, terrifying the
inhabitants into panicky flight.
At the time, the city's normal population of around 75,000 was already down
to 55,000. On the day of surrender less than three weeks later, only about 4,500
remained. The rest of Jaffa's citizens had fled their homes in terror, becoming
part of the726,000 Palestinian refugees created by the war.
Although Arab armies from neighboring countries did not enter Palestine until
May 15, Jewish forces had been active in a campaign of ethnic cleansing since
passage of the partition plan the previous Nov. 29. The first effort was aimed
at clearing out Palestinians living in cities designated as part of the Jewish
state.
This began in a major way on April 18, when Tiberias was captured and its
5,500 Palestinian residents put in flight. On April 22, Haifa fell to the Jewish
forces and 70,000 Palestinians fled. On May 10, the 12,000 Palestinians of Safed
were routed and the next day Beisan, with 6,000 Palestinians, fell.
Preceding these conquests had been the massacre at Deir Yassin on April 9,
where 254 innocent Palestinian men, women and children were killed by a combined
force drawn from Irgun and from Lehi, another Jewish terrorist group known to
the British as the "Stern Gang" and headed in 1948 by a triumvirate
that included Yitzhak Shamir. Reports of the savagery of the attack had spread
throughout the Palestinian community and caused widespread dread at the advance
of Jewish forces. 2
The capture of Jaffa differed from the earlier conquests in that under the
U.N. plan it was supposed to remain as a Palestinian enclave between neighboring
Tel Aviv and areas to the south and east designated as part of the Jewish state.
Its capture demonstrated that the future Israelis were not going to observe the
limits set on their state by the United Nations.
Why did the residents of Jaffa flee?
According to Jewish intelligence officer Slunuel. Toledano, "First
because the Etzel [Irgun] had been shelling Jaffa for three weeks before the
Haganah [regular army] entered, making the Arabs very much afraid; some already
began to leave as a result of that shelling by Etzel. [Second,] there were
rumors, based on the Etzel reputation, [that] the minute the Jews entered the
town, the inhabitants would all be slaughtered."3
After the conquest, Irgun forces indulged in widespread looting. Reported Jon
Kimche, former editor of the Jewish Observer and Middle East Review, the
official organ of the Zionist Federation of Britain:
"For the first time in the still undeclared war, a Jewish force
commenced to loot in wholesale fashion." 4 At first the young Irgunists
pillaged only dresses, blouses and ornaments for their girl friends. But this
discrimination was soon abandoned. Everything that was movable was carried from
Jaffa-furniture, carpets, pictures, crockery and pottery, jewelry and cutlery.
The occupied parts of Jaffa were stripped, and yet another traditional
military characteristic raised its ugly head. Historian Michael Palumbo wrote of
Jaffa: "Not content with looting, the Irgun fighters smashed or destroyed
everything which they could not carry off, including pianos, lamps and
window-panes. Ben Gurion afterwards admitted that Jews of all classes poured
into Jaffa from Tel Aviv to participate in what he called 'a shameful and
distressing spectacle."
When future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion learned that Jaffa had
fallen, he wrote in his diary: "Jaffa will be a Jewish city. War is
war." To accomplish this, Israel set up a housing committee that was to
allocate Palestinian homes and apartments to newly arrived Jewish families on
certain dates. But Israelis ignored the dates and occupied the abandoned
residences on a first-come, first possess basis. Israeli immigrant chief Giora
Yoseftal reported: "Thus the populating of Jaffa was achieved by continuous
invasions and counter invasions [of unauthorized immigrants." Within a
short time some Jews had moved into abandoned Palestinian homes in Jaffa.
Although no figures appear to be available for Jaffa, Palestinian bank accounts
in Haifa containing 1.5 billion Palestinian pounds were seized by Israel.
There was also desecration of Christian churches. Father Deleque, a Catholic
priest, reported:
"Jewish soldiers broke down the doors of my church and robbed many
precious and sacred objects. Then they threw the statues of Christ down into a
nearby garden." He added that Jewish leaders had reasssured him that
religious buildings would be respected, "but their deeds do not correspond
to their words."
Nearly a year after the fall of Jaffa, a group of Palestinian notables from
that city who had become refugees in Beirut submitted to U.S. Minister to
Lebanon Lowell C. Pinkerton an appeal to the United States to redress their
grievances . The appeal included enclosures of agreements with the Haganah and a
report on the conditions in Jaffa, the flight of Jaffa's refugees and how they
were forced to abandon their land and property. It ended with the warning that
"unless they [the refugees] are effectively resettled in their own homes
and lands, the peace sought for in this part of the world will never reign, even
though it might appear on the surface that the trouble has subsided."
Today, nearly a half-century later, the Palestinians remain refugees. But
visitors arriving at Ben-Gurion Airport in Israel can hear about the old
abandoned homes in a booklet called The Opinionated Tourist Guide. The
guide is given to tourists, who can read that "the most beautiful homes in
the country are the old Arab ones made of stone, built in the early part of the
century, that dot the capital and some streets of Haifa and Jaffa ... They cost
a fortune, however-$I million is not uncommon and there aren't many of them for
sale.
Donald Neff is author of the Warriors trilogy on U. S. -Middle East
relations. His books are available through the Recommended Reading:
Khalidi, Walid (ed.), From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the
Palestine Problem until 1948, Washington, DC, Institute for Palestine
Studies, second printing, 1987.
Morris, Benny, The Birth of the Palestine Refugee Problem, New York,
Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Nakhleh, Issa, Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem (2 vols), New
York, Intercontinental Books, 1991.
Palumbo, Michael, The Palestinian Catastrophe: 7he 1948 Expulsion
of a People from their Homeland, Boston, Faber and Faber, 1987.
Quigley, John, Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to Justice, Durham,
Duke University Press, 1990.
Segev, Tom, 1949: 7he First Israelis, New York, The Free Press, 1986.
Silver, Eric, Begin: 7he Haunted Prophet, New York, Random House,
1984.
Notes:
1 Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, pp. 96-101.
2 Khalidi, From Haven to Conquest, contains de Reynier's moving
first-hand account as well as accounts of attacks on other Palestinian centers,
pp. 761-78. Many writers have discussed the massacre, perhaps none better than
Silver, Begin, pp. 88-96. Also see details in Nakhleh, Encyclopedia of
the Palestine Problem, pp. 271-72.
3 Quigley, Palestine and Israel, p. 61.
4 However, widespread looting had already taken place in Haifa, according to
Kimche's own reports; see Palumbo, The Palestine Catastrophe, p. 65.
5 Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe, p. 91.
6 Segev, 1949, pp. 75-76.
7 Ibid., p. 73.
8 Palumbo, The Palestinian Catastrophe, p. 91
9 Lowell C. Pinkerton, Minister to Lebanon, to the Secretary of State, April
11, 1949, located in U.S. State Department Central Files on Lebanon, 1945-49.
Text in Journal of Palestine Studies, "Historical Document,"
Spring 1989, pp. 96-109.
10 Russell Harris, "Letter from Tel Aviv," Middle East
International, Jan. 7, 1994.
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